Nameless
by Tesekian
Summary: Second in the Hide and Seek series. I have no name. For a name you need people to know who can call you by that name. I have no one. Names are just labels I hide behind, before I move on again and take a new name. I am no one, but my story is important.
1. Default Chapter

I have no name. For a name you need people to know who can call you by that name. I have no one. I have no identity. Names are just labels I hide behind, before I move on again and take a new name. I return to some names after a while, it saves me having to forge too many passports and drivers licenses and suchlike. But I can never again use any name that once meant something to me, they're too dangerous. Too many of the wrong people know those names.  
  
I am no one, but my story is important.  
  
***  
  
My story could start in several different places, but I probably should begin telling it on the day my life was turned upside down. I was someone then, not much of someone but at least I had a name. My name was Sarah McClarin. I was a physics teacher in Avimoore, a small town in northern Scotland. I didn't have many friends, but there were a few among the other teachers. There was one man, Brian Grenald, a history teacher at the same school as me, whom I was particularly fond of. Although the rumours that we had sex in the RE store cupboard was completely false, we were seeing each other.  
  
We had a date planned on the Friday night when I got the letter, so I was in a good mood. I arrived at my flat and fitted the key in the lock, juggling my bags of marking into my other hand with some difficulty. I hated marking, and was highly tempted at times to let my students off homework just so that I'd have less. I don't think I was a very good teacher. I tended to get annoyed when my students struggled with concepts that seemed perfectly reasonable to me.  
  
I had to shove my weight quite hard against the door to get it to open: it was very stiff. It was only to be expected with the flat being as cheap as it was, but I had been rather short on money when I moved to Avimoore. That had been three years previously, when my only concerns had been getting as far away from the past as possible. I felt that I'd managed it. I hadn't heard from anyone in three years, no one knew where I was, and I was settling quite happily into my new life. There were some things I missed: some friends I would have like to see again, but on the whole, I was pleased that I had managed to escape and set up a new, normal life for myself. As much as I disliked my job, at least the life I led was a normal one.  
  
It just goes to show how wrong you can be. The post lay on my doormat when I got in and I stepped over it to put my things down, returning to close the door and collect it a moment later. Sometimes an extra pair of hands would be useful. There was very little post there: a couple of bills and one envelope with a postmark from London. That made me curious, and slightly worried. I didn't know anyone in London, or anywhere really outside of Avimoore, so no one should be writing to me. None of my friends were away or anything like that. I would have thought it might be misdirected, if it weren't for my name on the front in clear, printed letters. I doubt an unexpected letter would be enough to make most people nervous, but I wasn't ordinary, not even back then. The fact that someone I didn't know was sending me a letter was something I didn't like the idea of. I'd spent so long trying to get away from my past and establishing this normal life that I didn't want it to catch up with me. There were too many skeletons in my cupboard for me to take something like this letter so calmly.  
  
I sat down in what, in my flat, passed for a comfortable chair and opened the letter. I stared at the piece of paper it held for a few minutes before I could work up the courage to actually unfold it and see what it said. The longer I went before reading it, the longer I had to hope. Like Shrodinger's cat, before I read the letter there were two possibilities, and as long as it was unread it could be nothing to do with me. But I had to open it, I couldn't sit there forever and I had to know.  
  
The message was simple and short: "They're coming for you" but it filled me with a cold dread and a sense of something terrifying. It didn't say whom it was from, it didn't say why they had sent it: it just bore that frightening declaration. I couldn't even guess from handwriting who it was from, because it had been typed out, it could have been written on any computer by anyone. I didn't want to believe it, it didn't necessarily mean what I was afraid of after all. I knew enough about the world I lived in to know there were a lot of pranksters around, who enjoyed joking around with things like this. There could be a kid out there who sent this same message to a group of different people, just to scare them. That could be why it was so unspecific. If it really had been from someone warning me about my foes from the past, then they would have put some reference in that I would understand.  
  
The more I thought about it, the more confident I became that that was all it was. The letter was just some sicko's idea of a joke. There was no way they could have found me, not after all this time. They weren't really going to be coming for me. I put the letter in the bin, and went to prepare for my date. It didn't take me long to regret that simple action. 


	2. An Intruder

"Hey, gorgeous," Brian said as I opened the door to his knock. In that instant I forgot all about the mysterious letter. It didn't seem important now, Brain's presence put it all out of my mind and I relaxed fully for the first time since I read it. He leaned forward and kissed me as I came out, shutting the door behind me. I'd been planning my dress for this date for the past week. It was a red one the clung to my sides. I'd fallen in love with it in the shop and wasted a lot more money than I really had available on it. It was lovely though, and the expression on Brian's face made it worthwhile. I was wearing a necklace I'd been given years ago by a friend whom I would probably never see again. It had been a Christmas present, and now it was all I had to remember her by. I let my light brown hair fall lose about my shoulders, with only small clips pulling it away from my face: normally I wore it pulled back out of the way in a plait.  
  
Brian was wearing a suit that he looked wonderful in. He knew how I felt about him in suits, and this was one of his nicest. As he kissed me again, deeply and passionately, my hands moved up to fondle his soft hair. His hair looked a deep brown in some lights, but at times, mostly after he'd been out in the sun for a while, it could turn almost blond. As we reluctantly pulled out of the kiss, I looked up into his eyes, clear blue, framed by his round glasses.  
  
"Ready?" he murmured.  
  
"Always," I replied, ready to be led anywhere by those eyes. I turned quickly to lock the door, before slipping my hand into Brian's and allowed him to take me to his car. We had reservations at a restaurant we often went to on our dates, one that was nice but still relatively cheap: teacher's wages didn't offer much. It passed happily enough, neither of us noticing anything different about the day. The rest of the world didn't notice the letter or worry about its effects on me, and carried on regardless. It was only when I invited Brian back to my flat for coffee that something happened.  
  
My hand was behind me, fumbling to fit the key in the lock, as Brian lay kisses across my throat. Brian was such a wonderful kisser, and his lips touched mine almost the instant I finally turned the key. I opened the door and slipped laughing into the room. Brian followed, making a false growl as his hands slipped around my waist and captured me again. I leaned back into his firm embrace and allowed him to caress my neck with his kisses as he'd been caressing my throat only moments before.  
  
The sound of the door slamming caused us both to jump round in shock: Brian had left it open when he followed me. We stood there, staring at the man aiming the gun unerringly at the two of us. Brian's arm held me close to him as we stared with some fear at the man behind the gun.  
  
"Makepeace?"  
  
***  
  
Author's note: I hope you're all intrigued about Makepeace. Don't worry though, it's not going to turn into a soppy romance story. 


	3. Explanations

It took me a few moments to realise that the calm, quiet voice that had spoken was my own. That voice didn't show any of the fear I was feeling, and I hadn't intended to speak. It's incredible how free from emotion a voice can sound, at the most emotional of times, and this was one of them. My heartbeat had doubled and I was struggling to remember to breathe.  
  
"You know this man?" Brian asked me, but I was too busy, lost in my own thoughts, to notice. I was remembering the letter, with its cryptic message, and I despaired. They weren't just coming for me; they'd already arrived. I should have listened to the stranger who sent that warning, I should have left while I had the chance. Maybe it would have upset Brian, and maybe the school would have struggled for a while, but at least I'd be safe. At least the disks wouldn't be back in their hands.  
  
Makepeace held up the letter I'd been thinking about with the hand not holding the gun. It was almost as if he'd read my mind. "Someone tried to warn you," he said unnecessarily, "why didn't you listen? You could have got away but now you've gone and involved this man." He gestured at Brian. I panicked.  
  
"Leave Brian out of this!" I saw my mistake instantly, I had let him know where my loyalties lay. It was a dangerous mistake in a soldier, to allow the enemies to see just how much you care. But I'd started now and had to continue: if Brian could be saved then at least my mistake wouldn't be so bad. "Brian doesn't know anything and he hasn't done anything to you. Just let him go."  
  
"It's your fault he's involved. If you'd left when you'd got this letter, he wouldn't be any the wiser. But now there's no choice." The fear started to crescendo inside me, as I realised the implications of his words. Brian was caught up in something he had no part in because I'd been too stupid to leave when I had the chance. And now all the things I'd been dreading happening to me if I was caught would happen to him as well. And it was all my fault.  
  
"What's happened to you, Makepeace?" I dare to ask. "You used to be a decent man. I knew when you joined with Maybourne that at least you were doing what you thought was right. The Makepeace I know wouldn't join with those who want to hunt down an innocent child."  
  
"It's not just Susanne we're after, Major. Simmons is after all of you, you know too much and you've got too much information."  
  
"But what about you? You have to know what he's doing is wrong, what he did to Susanne." I was hoping that Susanne would be able to bring some compassion to him, allow him to see his mistakes. No one could find a way to justify what Simmons had done and planned to do to Susanne.  
  
"The experiments he's doing could save millions of lives." But they might try all the same.  
  
"At the cost of the innocents they experiment on! I can't believe even you would sink this low. Let Brian go."  
  
"Do you think he will just ignore everything that happens here? No, he'll try to find out more, he's a security risk. That's why you have to take him with you."  
  
It took a few moments for my brain to catch up with my ears, and when it had I was sure I was mistaken. "What?"  
  
"I sent you the warning so that you'd be able to get out. I thought you had enough common sense to leave once you found out we'd learned where you were hiding."  
  
"You sent the letter?" The pieces started to fit into place now. Makepeace had joined with Maybourne when he thought Earth was at risk because of our methods, but he would never hurt someone like Susanne. If he joined Simmons' organisation then he could be a man on the inside, just as he'd been a man on the inside of the SGC. I suddenly felt a great deal of admiration for him and the risk he was taking.  
  
"I wouldn't have come alone if I was trying to take you. Now take your boyfriend and go. Take the disks with you. When Simmons and the NID get here I'll say I found the place deserted and the disks gone." He gave me the letter he'd written and I went to the place I'd hidden the disks and left. Brian followed behind me, obviously at a loss.  
  
"What's going on, Sarah?" he asked as we got in the car, "Why did he call you major? What's all this about experiments and the NID? Who's Susanne?" He spouted so many questions that I didn't know where to begin, but I had to tell him something if he was to come on the run with me. It was the least I could do for what I had just done to him.  
  
"I was part of an organisation that explored other planets," I cut off his next question before he even asked. "Don't ask how, just trust me that we did. Colonel Simmons and the NID wanted to try out some of the technology we'd found. They" I paused to find the right word and gave up, "created this child, Susanne. They experimented on her, altering her body in so many different ways that she was barely human in the end. Eventually, my CO, General Hammond, was able to stop them experimenting on her. She was still a baby and didn't remember this. We brought her up on the base, and Hammond refused to let Simmons anywhere near her. Simmons had him killed." I was driving all this time, so I didn't have to look at him to see how he was taking this. I could imagine though, complete disbelief. I didn't pause on the subject of Hammond's death, the thought was still painful to me, even after all that time. "Cassidy, who took over from Hammond, kept Susanne safe for a while, but not forever. When Simmons came back and tried to take Susanne to continue his experiments, a friend, Daniel, took her away where they couldn't find her. We don't know where to, he didn't even tell us."  
  
"But how does this involve you?"  
  
"Susanne was healthy, even with the changes, so Simmons wanted to carry on his experiments on other people. We volunteered. We thought that as long as he was using us, Susanne and Daniel would be save. We were wrong. After a while we realised this, and left. We took some disks of Simmons' experiments on Susanne, hoping that the papers would listen and bring his organisation into the open. He didn't, and we couldn't go back to the SGC because Simmons knew what we'd done. We split the disks up between us, for insurance, and went into hiding separately. We thought it would be safer than if we weren't together. I had thought we were safe for a while." That was why I hadn't paid much attention to the letter, I'd been safe for so long that I didn't consider the possibility it was genuine.  
  
"Who's we?"  
  
"Colonel O'Neill, Janet, Teal'c and myself. Good friends, and people who cared about Susanne."  
  
"You realise what you're talking about is impossible." I knew it was hard to believe, but I would have thought Brian would at least listen. I told him more about what happened, but he refused to even accept the possibility.  
  
"I'm not going with you! You're crazy! This whole thing's crazy! Everything you've said to me has been a lie." That last part stung, and I knew it was true. I'd never been able to be honest with Brian, because I was afraid. I'd never told him about my past, and now he hated me for it. I pulled over.  
  
"I doubt Makepeace will tell anyone about you, Simmons won't be interested. Go and forget this ever happened." He got out and I drove away. I glanced back, once, and he had turned his back on the car. Every time I think about Brian, I see his back turned to me as I drive away, and I feel betrayed. I'm not sure who it was that did the betraying, I hid myself from him, but I can't help feel he could at least have watched me leave. My normal life, my friends, Brian: they were all gone now. My world had been ruined in one short evening.  
  
It was going dark, and it started to rain. I drove on, not knowing where I was going; thinking of Brian's back turned to me. And I cried. Tears flowed down my cheeks as the rain flowed down my windscreen. I didn't even bother to wipe them away, there was nothing to see. I was on the run again, and I was leaving behind everything I knew, owned and cared about. All I had left was myself and that was fading away. I couldn't be Major Carter; I couldn't be Sarah McClarin. My identity and my life had been stolen away from me once more, and again I was left alone and nameless. 


	4. Betrayal

I pulled in at the roadside hotel for the night at around midnight. I'd emptied my bank accounts at the service station just east of Avimoore, before I'd changed direction and headed south, to cover my tracks. I had three accounts, all under different names, but I couldn't take the risk Simmons knew about any of them. I was surprisingly calm, considering that my life had just been turned upside down. That afternoon I had headed home from the school, worrying about marking. Now I had to worry that the head of NID would track me down to experiment on me. The whole idea was aliens experimenting on humans had been turned upside down as easily as my life. None of the aliens I'd met had shown the slightest interest in cutting me up, but the humans did.  
  
It was almost pitch black as I headed from the car park towards the hotel door, but that didn't bother me. My eyes could adjust to the dark much quicker and better than most people's could. Simmons had given us much more of an advantage than he realised when he started experimenting on us.  
  
The room I was given was damp and had a musty smell, but it was only for one night. I sat down on the bed and decided that I'd felt rocks that were softer. I didn't have any clothes with me, my departure had been so rushed, and all I had was what I was wearing, the red dress, and the money I had collected. I would stop at the next town I passed and buy something. I just had to sleep naked that night.  
  
It was only when I was sorting through my handbag to see just how little I had, that I saw the letter again. I must have shoved it in there when Brian and I left. I looked at it again, it's simple message so clear, and I kicked myself mentally for not paying attention. I folded it to put it away again, and saw writing on the back. I knew that there hadn't been any writing there before, so I read it, curious. Makepeace must have written it when he arrived at my flat. Its message was as simple as the one on the front. "Daniel and Susanne" it said, followed by an address.  
  
I knew where my friends had gone.  
  
My heart leapt up and started dancing, before the suspicious side of my nature began to question this. I didn't know for sure that Makepeace was on our side, this could easily be a trap. A major argument raged in my head for almost an hour after that, as I considered the pros and cons of going to the address. I finally decided that if Makepeace had wanted to turn me over he would have done in Avimoore.  
  
I set off immediately, so that I didn't change my mind on the way down. That also meant I didn't stop to buy some new clothes, because I knew that if I did I would lose my resolve and end up abandoning the whole idea. It probably would have been better for all of us if I had.  
  
Several hours later, I arrived at a rented house in London. I was tired from lack of sleep in that awful hotel and the hours of driving. I was hungry because I refused to waste my money on that expensive food they sold at service stations. And I was terrified. I was standing at a door where the very act of knocking could be as good as signing a death sentence. I'm not sure how long I stood there, it felt like hours, but eventually, I lifted my hand to press the doorbell. I was half-relieved to find it didn't work. It seemed Daniel was going for the cheapest accommodation just as I was. I knocked instead. I wasn't to know how quickly I would come to regret that action.  
  
The wait for the door to be answered felt longer than my decision making, although it couldn't really have been much more than a minute. I think I proved all my theories about time and relativity in that instant. I started breathing again when the door opened and Daniel stood there, I hadn't even realised I'd stopped. It felt as though a lead blanket of fear had been lifted from my heart and I almost fainted with relief. Although, it could easily have been hunger and fatigue.  
  
"Sam!" Daniel exclaimed when he saw me. He glanced nervously outside, his gaze seeming to measure up every passer-by in the street, assessing for danger, before he yanked me inside. However lax I had become, it appeared Daniel had stayed paranoid. There was a tense moment as we stood looking at each other in the hall. Both of us were eyeing up all the changes that had occurred in each other. Daniel wasn't wearing glasses any more, I found out later he wore contacts, there were worry lines across his forehead and he looked almost twenty years older. His hair was thinning and going grey. Living in a constant state of paranoia couldn't have been very good for his health. "How are you?" he asked eventually.  
  
"I've been better." Then I smiled, "It's good to see you." The tense moment was gone and I found myself enveloped in a hug. Daniel had never been much of one for hugging, but it seemed he was as relieved to find me OK as I him.  
  
"How did you find me?"  
  
"Makepeace found me and gave me your address." I think panic crossed his face then, I supposed he was worried about Makepeace knowing where he was. "Where's Susanne?" I had expected her to be here, and I was anxious to remove my worries about her as well.  
  
There was a short, almost worried, pause before Daniel replied, "She's just popped down to the shops." I heard the relaxed and pleased tone of his voice and decided I'd been mistaken about the pause. "Do you want something to drink while we wait for her? Coffee?"  
  
"Yes please." I needed coffee otherwise I'd be in danger of collapsing, and Daniel always had good coffee. The amount of it he drank, he was an expert on it. I'd been drinking instant since I left the base, but I knew Daniel must have a coffee machine here.  
  
"Make yourself at home," he said, indicating a sort-of lounge. There was a rather moth-eaten sofa in front of a TV which looked like it had been dragged from the dump and would explode at even the suggestion of being turned on. A small coffee table, in roughly the same condition as the sofa, was between the other two items of furniture. Daniel's house was no better than my flat had been. I sat down in the sofa and waited. It didn't take long for Daniel to return from the kitchen with two steaming mugs.  
  
"We've got so much to catch up on," he said, smiling, as he sat down next to me, giving me one of the cups. "Do you know where the others are."  
  
I shook my head. "I haven't heard from any of them since we left, none of us knew where the others were going. You?"  
  
He shook his head in return. I lifted my mug and swallowed a mouthful. It tasted strange, almost sour. I just dismissed the thought and surmised that it was only because I hadn't had real coffee in so long. Although, drinking that stuff, I couldn't quite work out why I'd considered real coffee better than instant. It didn't seem to be waking me up either, in fact it seemed to be having the opposite affect. I realised Daniel was talking, but struggled to grasp the words. I was having difficulty keeping my eyes open. Then it hit me. The coffee was drugged!  
  
I dropped the mug and tried to stand up, but my legs were too shaky to hold me. Daniel reached out, but I snatched myself from his grasp, I knew, even in my hazy state, that Daniel must have done this on purpose. I attempted to make my way to the door, away from Daniel, but the drugs were preventing me. My legs gave out on me before I even travelled a metre and I collapsed to the floor. Daniel was by my side, supporting me, so that it didn't hurt when I fell. It was a bit late for friendly concern after what he'd done. I struggled to stay conscious and fight my way free, but with every passing second I was losing the battle.  
  
"I'm sorry, Sam," was the last thing I heard, before the world went dark.  
  
THE END  
  
Author's note: Don't worry, the sequel will be posted soon. 


End file.
